


Agent Howell Goes on a Field Trip

by Anonymous



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 06:04:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16781104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Ma’am, I have no fighting experience whatsoever, the only gun I know how to shoot is quite possibly a Nerf gun, I crash and burn under time pressure, I have a long history of setting gadgets on fire—”“Dan.”“I still don’t know how to cookpasta—”





	Agent Howell Goes on a Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually one of my really really old works that i never posted because i never had the confidence to. now that i've come back to it, i realize why i never did lol...but i do regret not posting it the time i made it. besides a few grammar and technical edits here and there, i haven't changed much just to preserve its nostalgic authenticity.

Dan’s a spy.

Okay, well he isn’t exactly a _spy._ He isn’t James Bond or Ethan Hunt, and he certainly doesn’t know how to survive a car chase, or how to keep cool with a gun pointed directly at his face. Evil men in suits don’t want his head on a platter, and his uncle doesn’t count. But if espionagesecrets.blogspot.com refers to spies as “ _Someone who gathers information under undisclosed and confidential circumstances_ (2008).” Then he’s practically the dictionary definition of spy—he’s definitely someone (on bad days he doubts it just a little) and he knows that Louise likes watching ( _exclusively_ , and _specifically_ ) Notting Hill when she breaks up with someone.

To cut the story short, he hacks.

But he likes to call it a fun game of trial and error. Get it wrong then the bomb goes off, get it right then the bomb still probably goes off, only a little less dangerous. Usually he doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore and it’s all just wishful thinking and prayers.

He got recruited only because one day while he was dicking around instead of paying his bills, he stumbled upon a funny little website that was apparently secretly a spot for people to bid off victims of human trafficking. Apparently no one else could find it? Flash forward and for the first few days on the job he’s instructed to stalk dangerous rich people through cameras, and strengthen the agency’s security. Now, though, since he’s been promoted to _comms_ , and he gets to watch other people do that for him with the addition of martial arts training and some guns. Dan’s mostly there for moral support, vital intel, and a quick search on Google asking which mushrooms are poisonous.

It’s a Tuesday, and the Monaco mission’s a success. The agent he’s handling for the month— Chris Kendall—has already taken a flight back to the UK, with only a slightly sprained ankle and a wounded finger because he pricked himself on some rose bushes when he tried to break into the mark’s mansion.

Everybody's happy and the world isn’t on the verge of Armageddon just yet.

“Everything’s fine, it’s all great,” he says to the ceramic gnome seated atop his desk shelf.

Then he preoccupies himself with fixing the files cluttering his desk. A few are unimportant so he jams them into the nearest drawer he can find. As he goes through the rest of them, he realizes he doesn’t really know what to do with them. They’re confidential, but he doubts he’ll be needing them for any future missions. He contemplates between shredding them or just leaving them somewhere to collect dust.

On the verge of deciding on the latter, he hears a knock resonate through his cubicle. He hopes it’s Mrs.Robinson, a retired field agent who still hangs around the office to make everyone crumpets. But when he looks up, he isn’t greeted with the lovely smell of freshly baked goods. Instead, he’s greeted by Louise, who looks a bit out of breath.

“Boss wants to see you,” she says then pauses to point her thumb in the direction of his boss’ office “Now.”

He looks up at her, a bit confused. His boss usually never calls for anyone aside from agents who fuck up particularly badly and agents who nail things pariticularly spectacularly. Dan’s usually the uneventful inbetween. He gives Louise a curious look. She shrugs and says, “She told me she wanted to see you and then she repeated it two seconds later—so maybe get off your ass and go there?”

\---

He knocks on the door loud enough for it to be heard. “Ma’am?” he asks, “You called for me?”

“Come in,” she says, the sound coming out a bit muffled out of the wooden door.

When Dan steps into the room, he catches her looking out the large glass window panels ominously, as if she was planning the end of the world.

“As much as i know you’re comfortable in your cubicle back there, we’re going to need you on the field.”

It takes about two seconds for that to sink into Dan’s head

And it takes one more for Dan to realize that it is a <i>terrible</i> idea.

There are many reasons as to why he has never been on the field and why he never should be. Notably, setting the entire gadget department on fire because he thought the ballpen flamethrowers were cool.

He wasn’t made for the field and the field certainly wasn’t made for him.

But as soon as Dan opens his mouth to detest, his boss beats him to the punch, “I know what you’re going to say. Just hear me out.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of Redroot from last month’s mission,” she says and Dan scrunches up his face. He fucking hated Redroot. They were a notorious hacker team that planned mass illegal bankruptcy and quite possibly world domination. It took him an entire day for him to take down their servers, and a whopping three weeks to actually _find_ them. He lived on coffee and cup noodles during those painstaking weeks and Louise never let him hear the end of it. His old phone still has bugs from that mission.

He’s not sure what kind of face he’s making, but it’s enough for his boss to see his hatred for them. “Well, they’re back and they managed to get their hands on information we’ve been searching for for years. They’ve proven themselves incredibly difficult to track but,” she slides pictures across the table, “We managed to get a lead on them a few days ago.”

Dan picks up one of the pictures and looks at them closely and notices—in the crowd of a mall— the leader of Redroot going into what seems to be a laptop store.

“Ligouri took these last Wednesday on his Giovanni mission,” she says then points at the logo of the laptop store “He confirmed just yesterday that this is where they’re keeping their servers. I need you to download the files, and give their databases a virus—you know the drill well enough by this point.”

Dan already has ‘no’ waiting at the tip of his tongue and he’s very willing to say it. He doesn’t see the pros of him being a field agent at all. Plus, even If he did take this mission, he’s pretty sure that it’ll go spiraling down the hill after a few seconds. But then she looks at him. Her eyes have so much faith and belief and trust in him that the only thing scaring him now is disappointing her. She’s a woman who sees the things Dan cannot. Shit. Maybe she _is_ planning to end the world.

Dan let’s out a shaky breath then says, “Have you maybe tried asking Kjelberg? He’s as good as I am—better, even. And he actually has field experience.”

“Yeah, well, that one field experience led him to the infirmary for two months,” she says as she leans into her seat.

There’s a bubble of willingness starting at Dan’s throat and he desperately tries swallowing it down. “Ma’am, I have no fighting experience whatsoever, the only gun I know how to shoot is quite possibly a Nerf gun, I crash and burn under time pressure, I have a long history of setting gadgets on fire—”

“Dan.”

“I still don’t know how to cook _pasta_ —”

“ _Daniel,_ ”she interrupts and it’s the voice she uses when an agent fucks up particularly terribly. It’s the voice that got him so scared of his boss in the first place. It’s not firey or intense or rageful. There’s no hard volume. It’s quietly venomous, so much so that it seethes through Dan’s skin like acid. Which is a lot worse, so of course Dan shuts up when he hears it. 

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Look, I’ve seen your records. You certainly won’t be fighting anytime soon—which is why I’m having Kendall back you up in case anything happens. I’m also teaming you up with Pentland because the two of you make a star team.”

At the mere mention of Chris and Louise, he lets himself breathe. Because _thank God_ he’s getting teamed up with them. Aside from being his closest colleagues in the agency, they’re the only people keeping him sane throughout this entire endeavor, but that doesn’t make him any less reluctant to take this mission. .

“I’m sorry ma’am but I feel that I’m not cut out for the field and I shouldn’t be trusted just yet,” Dan looks at his feet, guilty.

“Sucks to be you then,” his boss says and Dan looks back up at her. “Because I’m giving this job to you anyway. I don’t want to risk giving it to anyone else.”

“I trust you Dan,” she pushes the two folders toward him, which he assumes to be Chris’ and Louise’s records “That’s all. You’re dismissed.”

_It can’t possibly go that terribly_ , Dan thinks, holding both folders close to his chest on his way out.

\---

“Louise this is going to go terribly.” Dan says as soon as he turns on his comms. He’s currently at the back of a shopping centre making his way toward the entrance. And by this point, he’s regretting every decision he’s made thus far to get tangled into this insane espionage career. It’s not because he’s scared of dying—okay scratch that— _of course he’s scared of dying._ He’s just a lot more scared of the many ways he _could_ die. And the thing that scares him the most is the fact that he might die not due to spy-related things—but due to the dumbest things ever. Like his shoelace getting caught in an escalator.

“Well at least if it does, you’ll have my panicking voice lulling you to sleep,” Louise says to him on the comms. She, along with Chris, is in a sketchy van somewhere in the parking lot. “I know that doesn’t sound very reassuring. But it’s because I believe in you.”

“Thanks,” he smiles to himself. He’s really lucky to have Louise. “How’s Chris doing, by the way?”

“Poor boy’s practically exhausted. Apparently he went on three consecutive trips, sleep-deprived. And he still managed to get here,” she pauses probably to look at Chris “So Dan, don’t you dare get into a fight.”

Dan doubts he will.

\-----

Dan walks through stalls and keeps his eyes straight ahead of him. There are a lot less people than Dan expected there to be, probably because it’s a Tuesday. Nobody goes out on Tuesdays and if they did, they’re either cutting classes or are a lovely old couple.

He fiddles with the flashdrive in the pocket of his hoodie.

“Shop is to your right. Also, Dan, please don’t put on the hood of your hoodie. You look like you _want_ people to think you’re inconspicuous,” Louise says. She’s probably gotten through enough of the mall’s security and cameras by this point to give Dan easy access to Redroot’s servers.

When he spots the place, he goes in, swerving through laptops his highschool-self would’ve died for.

There’s a guy with incredibly black hair at the counter—must be one of those sad teenagers that would rather be selling laptops instead of having class. But he’s behind a computer, furiously typing on the keyboard.

Dan knocks on the glass counter hoping to catch the guy’s attention.

The fierce typing is put to a very abrupt stop as the guy practically snaps his head up. And—

Oh.

Those are really nice eyes.

“How may I help you?” The guy asks, and if the broad shoulders and gorgeous cheekbones hadn’t already given it away, this guy is most definitely _not_ a teenager.

“I’m, uh, the new guy,” Dan says awkwardly. He swears, his social ineptitude will be the cause of his own death someday.

“Find a way to use that computer—I think it’ll give us direct access to Redroot’s servers,” Louise says. Dan completely forgot that she was still there and could see everything he saw. It brings him back to those weird days in his cubicle when he had to endure hours of his agents trying to seduce dangerous people. It’s a whole different level of thirdwheel, being on the comms.

“The new guy?” Blue Eyes asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup,” Dan ends up playing with the flashdrive in his pocket again. He’s a creature of habit.

“I wasn’t informed of anyone new coming here today,” He pauses to _smile_ , “Do you need a tour?”

“Uh...um?” Dan finds himself stuttering out because of that smile. Dan never really finds himself falling in love with smiles and wanting more—but this one spread across his chest like honey— sticking way too close to his heart. It felt warm, delicate, golden, like the slow rise of the sun when the world was too asleep to witness it.

“Dan I know he’s cute, but this isn’t the time to get sidetracked. You’re on a mission,” Louise says just when Dan almost forgets she was there.

“Well, there isn’t much to tour anyway,” Blue Eyes pushes himself away from the monitor, the chair gliding across the floor smoothly. “Just a bunch of laptops there,” he gestures to an array of HP models “And some keyboards,” he points to what is indeed some keyboards.

He turns around and points to the door behind him, “And here we have the door to Narnia, also known as the employee stock.”

He looks at this guy’s nametag, hoping to no longer refer to him as Blue Eyes. It says “Robert.” Well. Dan doesn’t really want to admit to himself that he’s disappointed but really, “Robert” doesn’t really give Blue Eyes’ gorgeous cheekbones much justice.

Dan’s gonna keep internally calling him Blue Eyes because it’s a lot better than “Robert.”

“And that’s all we’ve got really. Nothing too extravagant” Blue Eyes looks up at Dan with a look that’s bordering on adorable but also _hot._ Dan’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be into it, but he is.

This is most definitely the part where the mission goes downhill.

But because Louise is amazing, she snaps Dan out of his thoughts with, “Holy shit, Dan,” a passive pause, “There’s an unconscious body behind the counter.” And true enough, when Dan makes his way behind the counter, he passes the lifeless body of a man sprawled across the floor.

And because Dan doesn’t know what else to do, he asks about it, “Is he all right?”

“Oh yeah, that’s uh, that’s Billy,” Blue Eyes looks at Billy almost wistfully “He usually comes to work drunk. I think they’re having him fired tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay false alarm. He’s still breathing,” Louise lets out a relieved sigh but it just comes out a grumble in Dan’s earpiece “Now try to get your hands on that PC.”

Dan drops his bag on the floor and it lands just next to Billy. It doesn’t have anything that’s significantly important— just a bunch of Uno cards and a broken phone charger so it looks like it has something inside it. “Hey, is it all right if I can use that for a bit?” Dan says in the most nonchalant tone he can manage. He doesn’t want Blue Eyes to think that he’s a Super Secret Spy Agent on a mission to steal info from a notorious hacker team. At this point, Blue Eyes probably just thinks Dan’s a really bad shoplifter.

Blue Eyes looks at Dan, then looks back at the computer. Then, finally, after a painstaking 30 seconds, Blue Eyes says “Sure,” then leaves the chair. When he stands up Dan realizes how tall Blue Eyes is—just a few centimeters shorter than him. And Dan’s really tall.

“I’ll just be over there,” he says and smiles that god damn smile again. It gives Dan a whole lot of motivation

“Okay.”

Blue Eyes takes his leave and Dan slips into the chair.

“Okay so I’ve taken down their firewalls so everything is just easy access for you by now,” Louise says just as Dan starts doing the only thing he knows he good at. The only thing he’s learned how to love. The familiar rush of electricity runs through his veins as he types away and it reminds Dan of why he took this job in the first place. Because it’s dangerous. Because it sends a shivery, almost eerie rush down his spine. Some people find that rush in the pull of a trigger, some find it in a perfectly landed punch, some find it in a good chase. Dan finds it in the fear of getting caught; in the doubt of everything going wrong. But he doesn’t mentally breakdown like in some situation that require him to do something he’s not used to. Because in this, he knows what he’s doing straight down to his core.

And, since he’s hacking so easily into servers that took him almost an entire month to find, Dan’s gifted with the feeling of downright _euphoria_.

_Ha_. _Serves you right, Redroot motherfuckers_.

“There, that’s it—those are the files,” Louise says as Dan skims through them a bit. He shouldn’t feel bad about taking a quick look at them even though they’re confidential. He’s just making sure he’s not stealing a someone’s thesis by accident.

After the quick check, he takes out his flashdrive, momentarily says goodbye to seasons one and two of Sherlock, and transfers the files.

Thus the waiting game begins...

15%

Dan opens up a puzzle widget on the desktop. It’s the penguin puzzle that Dan’s never actually finished before in all his years of living.

35%

The penguin’s nose is in between its feet, and a miscellaneous black and white block. Dan’s having a pretty hard time getting it out.

78%

Dammit now the head’s stuck in what seems to be parts of the torso.

89%

Dan gives up, closes the widget, and settles for watching the load bar fill up with green. It’s very relaxing, Dan likes to think. Like watching clouds move past slow and easy on cold afternoons.

100%

There it is—Dan’s favorite number. Swiftly, he clears out all evidence of him so much as merely touching the computer, and leaves a ghost virus that wouldn’t interrupt whatever Blue Eyes was doing beforehand. It just takes care of what needs to be taken care of.

He ejects the flashdrive, puts it back safely in his pocket, turns around and gets out of the chair.

The last part never happens though, because what comes next is, frankly, terrifying. Because a) there is a gun shoved against the space just between his heart and his ribcage and b) Blue Eyes is practically caging him in between the desk and his body, looking at him with a face that’s probably meant to ensue fear—but all it does is make Dan very bothered. In a really weird way. In a ‘you’re scaring me but it’s also hot’ way. In a way that Dan doesn’t like _at all_ (but still kinda does). But also _fuck_ this infatuation at first bullshit because there’s a good chance he’s going to die and it’s all because he’s hot and bothered. Dan can practically imagine the news headlines— _Lonely Boy Shot To Death ‘Cause He Pissed In His Pants!_

“Who are you,” Blue Eyes says, and it comes out more of a demand than it is supposed to be a question. His face is so near to his, that Dan can see a lot more than blue in his eyes. There are yellows. Greens. Greys. An entire galaxy. But being cheesy isn’t really an option right now because there is a _gun being pressed to his body_. He might die. He might join Billy on the floor.

Dan keeps his mouth shut, and waits for near death. At least he’s dying on a mission—doing something he’d always loved doing. That is, until Louise chimes in, because she exists and Dan couldn’t be any more thankful that she does, “Oh God, Dan! Okay. All right. Calm down.” Louise is probably saying this to herself “I’m waking up Chris...just stay there, don’t move. Stall him; have a polite conversation. _Just. Don’t. Die._ ” Dan is trying his best.

Dan manages a very shaky smile, which probably pisses off Blue Eyes. “Where do you come from?” Blue Eyes asks, in a voice just above a whisper. It’s low, and rough and of course Dan will pretend he isn’t turned on by it.

“I-I’m, uh, I’m just the new guy,” Dan stutters out. He admits he was never good at stalling. Or just speaking in general.

“Who do you work for?”

“Our boss, of course,”

Blue Eyes narrows his eyes. “If you don’t spill anything, your blood will be what’s spilling on the floor.”

“Oh hey! That’s a zeugma! Those’re really cool,” Bless Dan and his never-ending useless and unimportant facts about the english language, “It’s a sentence where one statement is figurative and another is literal.” 

Obviously, that wasn’t the right thing to say because the gun is pressed tighter against Dan’s chest. “O-okay. Yeah. I don’t like zeugmas either. They’re bloody hard to construct.”

“Who are you,” again with the demand. Blue Eyes should really learn how to make his inquisitive statements sound more like actual inquistitions.

“Um,” Dan moves away, pushing into his chair. But Blue Eyes just leans in further, invading even more of Dan’s personal space and causing an impenetrable body cage. This close, Dan can see a few blemishes on his skin. This close, he can feel the hot breath fanning his lips.

It sends Dan into a daze, almost.

Dan doesn’t really know what causes him to do it, but whatever it is, he should really take it out. Because Blue Eyes could be a murderer. Blue Eyes could be a mafia leader. Blue Eyes could be part of Redroot. But they’re so close.

This could be counted as stalling right? Field agents make out with their marks to get a closer shot all the time. So of course, this is just Dan being professional.

Yeah.

Professional.

Dan grabs Blue Eyes by his shirt, and slowly, almost savoring every fleeting moment, he bring his face closer. Their lips are only a kiss away.

And then, he presses his lips against his—soft and chaste; it’s more of an invitation, really. Dan feels a wave of warmth start in his chest, it comes slow, but then engulfs his entire being.

Someone pulls away first (Dan assumes it’s himself since he’s never really learned how to breath during a kiss), and when Dan opens his eyes, Blue Eyes looks at him again—or more at Dan’s lips, rather.

Their lips press a lot less chastely as Dan tilts his head to get a better angle, his glasses going askew on the bridge of his nose. Blue Eyes goes for a taste, then a bite, then another taste. And every time he does, Dan gets the same rush he gets whenever he hacks into those illegal servers. That same dangerous rush of fear, doubt, and adrenaline. Because Blue Eyes is dangerous. Dan brings his hands up into Blue Eyes’ hair, messing it up so that he’ll get a pretty great view when he pulls back for air. But he hasn’t and he has to congratulate himself later for being able to breathe.

Dan swears he hears Louise in the background saying, “Chris is coming, don’t worry—oh. _Oh_ , that’s certainly one way to stall.”

**Author's Note:**

> all sentimentality aside, i'm definitely not proud of this fic hsfshfshs,, and im not even in the phandom anymore! but 12 year old me would thank me now. thank you for reading!


End file.
